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I feel like I can interpret what your saying in two ways: - Archivism is an important goal - Often cannot be accomplished in a way that meets the creators int

I feel like I can interpret what your saying in two ways: - Archivism is an important goal - Often cannot be accomplished in a way that meets the creators interests - Important enough that sometimes it supersedes the interest of the creators - Therefore, when all these preconditions hold, piracy is justified to accomplish the goal of archivism. The other way: - Morally, piracy is preservation The former is a line of reasoning I think most people could get behind. I think we could work to outline what cases meet the criteria at each stage, handles cases that other goals might have more precedence (for example the right to privacy might trump the right to archive). This is a lot of work. I would expect multiple lifetimes of energy and activism would be necessary meaningfully move the needle on copyright law in a way that benefited society over all. The later is a dogmatic statement that steamrolls over any other interests. While there are clearly exceptional cases where the current system fails (that you point out), it's not clear that clinging to this position above all others will result in a net benefit. It's hard to imagine an expert in Archivism doesn't have some understanding of the moral boundaries of their field. As such, I would expect most experts to take the former approach. So when the second approach is _exactly what you say_, it's hard to take the "Piracy is preservation" as a meaningful stance to advance Archivism, and instead leads me to interpret it as talking point to justify piracy. And this isn't to say an individual _couldn't_ start from a dogmatic position, do a ton of work and make the world a better place. Stallman for example has taken a pretty extreme position with free software, done a ton of work, contributed to ton of valuable institutions. All this swimming upstream into much of the rest of societies existing policies. But it seems the exception. And I think in most of these cases the burden of 'demonstrating net societal value' correctly falls on the activist, for example in areas other than free software, Stallmans dogmatic positions haven't been well received and I think appropriately so. (And to be fair, I think most great activists have some of this approach, at least in the storied version of their work, but as Ziwe would say, "How else do you compare yourself to Martin Luther King?") So yeah, if Archivism is your life's work, good luck. I hope you can find ways to increase the net value of society. But really I think most people just want free stuff and will say whatever to justify it.

LocalH 4y ago
My point of saying "piracy is preservation" is that even those who pirate because they want free stuff are helping to preserve works, even if that isn't their primary goal. Look at the entirety of the C64 cracking scene, and look at all the programs that would have had much less of a chance to exist today, in 2023, if they hadn't been cracked. Yes, sometimes piracy requires cracking, and that is not exactly 1:1 preservation. However, that's merely analogous to the difference between the original Doctor Who videotapes that were wiped, and the off-air U-Matic NTSC recordings that were found. While the latter were not at all the same quality as the original, they were nonetheless useful for preservation, as the color signal was able to be used in many cases with the black-and-white telerecording. If one is unable to preserve a work 1:1, it's nonetheless preferable to preserve it in a slightly modified form, than not preserve it at all. If a program only exists in cracked form, that's a travesty for sure, but it's better than the program not existing at all. In that case, it's also more likely that the original might be found, if there is awareness of the program's existence from the cracked copy. I fear this will only get worse with advances in cryptography. The ones spending big bucks to develop these protection systems simply do not care about preservation outside of their vaults. They would much rather see the old works go away, so they don't have to compete with them. I believe retrogaming to be an anomaly that would not exist today without the piracy of the past. The emulation and piracy scenes of the late 90s and early 2000s were seminal in solidifying retrogaming as a subculture in and of itself.
- greysphere 4y ago
  For sure, people who pirate are helping archivism. Similarly, people who murder are helping stem climate change. That being said, I agree with most of your statements and concerns. I probably don't weigh them quite as highly compared to creators interests as you do, but I appreciate that you are invested in the issue. I think it'd be very reasonable to have an institution responsible for archiving you could submit works to (maybe must in some cases?) I know in the us to register a copyright you have to submit the work already, though I would guess it could be the work with drm included. Seems like something in that direction could satisfy archivism without needing to resort to piracy.

LocalH 4y ago

My point of saying "piracy is preservation" is that even those who pirate because they want free stuff are helping to preserve works, even if that isn't their primary goal. Look at the entirety of the C64 cracking scene, and look at all the programs that would have had much less of a chance to exist today, in 2023, if they hadn't been cracked. Yes, sometimes piracy requires cracking, and that is not exactly 1:1 preservation. However, that's merely analogous to the difference between the original Doctor Who videotapes that were wiped, and the off-air U-Matic NTSC recordings that were found. While the latter were not at all the same quality as the original, they were nonetheless useful for preservation, as the color signal was able to be used in many cases with the black-and-white telerecording. If one is unable to preserve a work 1:1, it's nonetheless preferable to preserve it in a slightly modified form, than not preserve it at all. If a program only exists in cracked form, that's a travesty for sure, but it's better than the program not existing at all. In that case, it's also more likely that the original might be found, if there is awareness of the program's existence from the cracked copy. I fear this will only get worse with advances in cryptography. The ones spending big bucks to develop these protection systems simply do not care about preservation outside of their vaults. They would much rather see the old works go away, so they don't have to compete with them. I believe retrogaming to be an anomaly that would not exist today without the piracy of the past. The emulation and piracy scenes of the late 90s and early 2000s were seminal in solidifying retrogaming as a subculture in and of itself.

greysphere 4y ago
For sure, people who pirate are helping archivism. Similarly, people who murder are helping stem climate change. That being said, I agree with most of your statements and concerns. I probably don't weigh them quite as highly compared to creators interests as you do, but I appreciate that you are invested in the issue. I think it'd be very reasonable to have an institution responsible for archiving you could submit works to (maybe must in some cases?) I know in the us to register a copyright you have to submit the work already, though I would guess it could be the work with drm included. Seems like something in that direction could satisfy archivism without needing to resort to piracy.